The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users by expanding the capabilities of mobile electronic devices. One such expansion in the capabilities of mobile electronic devices relates to an ability of such devices to capture images. In fact, camera functionality has become a popular feature of devices such as mobile telephones. Mobile telephones having image capturing functionality may be referred to as camera phones. Camera phones and other mobile electronic devices capable of capturing images typically enable a person to capture an image which can then be saved, deleted, transmitted to another device, etc.
It is currently common for users of such devices to aim a view finder at an object. When a displayed image of the object appears in focus, the image may be captured, for example, by pushing a button or activating a joystick. However, if the user's hand moves or shakes either while attempting to focus or while pushing the button or activating the joystick, a blurred image may result. If the image captured is a natural scene, the image captured may still be worth saving since, for example, the object may appear at an acceptable quality level while a background behind the object is blurred. However, in certain contexts in which high quality or resolution of captured images is required, the captured image may not be useable if instability is perceptible in the captured image. One example of a context in which high quality or resolution in captured images is desirable arises when a camera phone or other device capable of capturing images is used to input information. For example, optical character recognition (OCR) applications such as a bar code reader, a business card reader, etc., may act as information input devices. In such applications, the image capturing device may advantageously be within about 15 cm from an object of which an image is desired. Accordingly, if an unsteady hand attempts to take the pictures blurring may occur which renders the image useless or severely degraded. Additionally, the action of pressing a button or joystick to capture the image may cause motion that introduces blurring. Furthermore, even if a steady hand is able to capture an image under the circumstances described above, the practice of repeating the action of pressing the button or joystick repeatedly when numerous images are desired can be tedious and undesirable.
In order to provide a solution for the problems described above, it may be advantageous to provide a method for improving camera input user interface functionalities.